The Strawberries of Ethonia
by Kalyani
Summary: The ultimate fairytale cliche--- wicked witches, paupers-turned-princess, wise men, and a certain man in black. Humorous one-shot


The Strawberries of Ethonia By Aurelia  
  
Once upon a time, there was a beautiful young girl named Rosebelle. She was a peasant girl from a simple, pig-herding village, but so beautiful that she easily outshone any lady of the court. Realizing that she could not aspire to marry a prince under her present circumstances, Rosebelle went out in search of a good fairy to make her a princess. True to form, she at once found a fairy, good or bad, one could not tell, who would only grant her wish under one condition. She must always come outside to see the fairy at midnight. Rosebelle, a street-wise girl, though rather lacking in the common sense department, nodded her assent.  
  
Soon enough, "Princess Rosebelle of Pigta" was courted by The Prince of Verivel, and the poor prince, assuming that he was getting a princess, married instead a little peasant girl from a fictional kingdom. On the day after the royal wedding, the fairy waited outside the castle. But Rosebelle did not show up. The fairy waited, and waited, but when she heard the sound of merriment last long into the wee hours of the morning, she grew angry. Rosebelle had betrayed her! She put a curse upon Rosebelle, and deemed that her life would be fraught with troubles.  
  
The very day after Rosebelle was married, her mother was trampled under a rampaging carriage, then the peasants began a revolt, and water rose from the nearby lake to flood the entire kingdom. The prince, who was now king, was shocked, and immediately called wise men from all over the world to solve his problem.  
  
The inaptly-named 'wise men', having no clue what on earth could be wrong with the weather, and the kingdom, and life in general, heard the king out, then quietly conferred, to see if there was not some idiocy they could come up with, and call a solution.  
  
"You must find the strawberries of Ethonia," intoned one of them, impressively, in the pseudo-deep voice of supposedly erudite fairytale characters.  
  
The king nodded his head. "Where would I find these? How would they help?"  
  
A pause, and another panicked conference.  
  
"You will find them in Ethonia," said another. "Once the monarch of the troubled kingdom eats of this wonderful fruit, the kingdom will be saved!"  
  
Leo, the prince-turned-king who had now achieved a big enough role within the story to merit a name, made a vow that he would find the fabled strawberries, and bring an end to the abundance of plights that were raining down upon his kingdom. Naturally, no one thought to blame the alleged princess.  
  
So, Leo set out on a long, perilous, journey to find the enchanted fruit, and save his kingdom. With Herculean effort, he climbed into his private, luxury carriage, and was on his way to. what was that place the wise men had said again? Oh, well, it didn't matter; the pilot would find it some how.  
  
While he was gone, Queen Rosebelle stayed behind to manage the kingdom like a good little pseudo-princess.  
  
The journey to the numinous kingdom of Ethonia took just upwards of a fortnight, owing, in part, to the fact that neither he, nor his driver, had the least inkling of where Ethonia was, nor the slightest inclination to find out. When at last, the coach drove through the borders, King Leo was quite tired, and rather hungry, for his supply of caviar was not prepared for any expedition outside of thirty minutes, and naturally the king could not be expected to eat the bread and meat of peasants! All in all, King Leo was not overly partial to long trips.  
  
"Greetings, most revered leader!" was the welcome he got from a man dressed fully in black, holding a large white card with words in a strange script emblazoned onto it.  
  
"Hello!" said King Leo, most agreeably surprised. He had not informed the nobles of the kingdom that he was arriving.  
  
"I am pleased to welcome you to Ethonia, most supreme commander," said the man in black, ushering him into a large white limousine. Incidentally, King Leo wondered whether it was habitual in Ethonia for arriving dignitaries to be escorted in a stagecoach that did not seem to be drawn by any horses.  
  
"Oh, you don't need to call me all that," demurred King Leo, though he was enjoying the accolade to his ego. "Just 'Your Regal Majesty King Leo 'is fine."  
  
"W-Wait!" protested the man. "'King Leo'? Aren't you Colonel Pilaf?!"  
  
"Uhh... not the last time I checked..."  
  
Pushing him out to the limo, the man glared at him. "What are you, some kind of idiot? Didn't you read this sign?!" He waved the white card recklessly.  
  
"I don't read whatever language that is!" declared King Leo. The man heaved a heavy sigh.  
  
"Great! Just great! The real Colonel Pilaf is probably out there somewhere without an imperial escort! I'm going to get fired!!" He rushed off, leaving King Leo to fend for himself on the strange and dangerous streets of downtown Ethonia.  
  
The legacy of Ethonia was not its mythical fruit, but rather in their technological innovation. It was an extensive kingdom, on the vanguard of modern machinery, and with scientists of unsurpassable caliber. Dubbed the 'Urban Kingdom', though its denizens preferred to view it as a democratic nation, Ethonia had many contemporary devices, trains for example, that proved quite perplexing to the bucolic King Leo.  
  
"What is this 'Subway'?" wondered King Leo aloud, before entering the mysterious cave that seemed to sprout from the middle of the road. A rush of exhaust and fumes greeted him, and in some trepidation, he watched as three bullet trains shot by. "Amazing!" he murmured, blissfully ignorant of the snickers he was engendering from passersby. "A multi-carriage, without horses!"  
  
Ah, but why was he in this strange land? King Leo had not forgotten, surprisingly enough, that he was looking for the fabled strawberries of Ethonia. Approaching a bystander he began to inquire as to the whereabouts of the produce that would, in some twisted and peculiar way, save his kingdom.  
  
"Excuse me," he requested of a teenage boy, lethargically propped up against a vandalized wall. "Could you tell me where I might find the legendary strawberries of Ethonia?"  
  
The boy eyed him, amusedly. "You're looking for the strawberries of Ethonia?"  
  
King Leo nodded eagerly, oblivious of the sarcasm.  
  
"Well, your quest will be a difficult one indeed," emphasized the boy, making elaborate gestures with his hands that conveyed nothing. "First you must purchase the legendary ticket."  
  
King Leo kept nodding. "Yes, yes."  
  
"Then you must embark the legendary train," the boy said, with the sumptuous air of a prince instructing a lowly squire. "Then you must exit at the legendary greenhouses. Whereupon, you must purchase them from the legendary retailer."  
  
King Leo nodded his head one last time. "I will see to it that you are handsomely rewarded for this, lad. You may even be appointed to knighthood." Then he ambled off to buy a ticket.  
  
The boy snorted. "You meet all sorts of weirdoes in the subway."  
  
King Leo was, astonishingly, able to follow these instructions, and soon arrived at the 'legendary' greenhouses, where Ethonia's advanced technologies had enabled them to grow strawberries year-round. In the upsurge of visitors at the greenhouses, he knocked into a man adorned in assorted medallions of honor in battle. Accompanying him was the man in black who had rudely evicted him from the limousine.  
  
"I beg your pardon," said King Leo, helping the man to his feet.  
  
"I am Colonel Pilaf," greeted the man with medals. "And it's quite alright."  
  
"King Leo," said, who else but, King Leo. The Colonel's face contorted momentarily, no doubt remembering that in his guide's attempt to excuse his tardiness, he had implicated, in particular, one 'King Leo'.  
  
"You wouldn't happen to know where I might acquire the mystic strawberries of Ethonia, would you?" queried the king.  
  
"Mystic strawberries?" Colonel Pilaf's face reflected an unprecedented extent of mirth.  
  
"Yes! That's right!" King Leo explained his country's predicament.  
  
"Ah, I see, you must employ the wise men of the mountains."  
  
"How did you know?" asked King Leo, surprised.  
  
"They always did have a taste for these strawberries," recalled Colonel Pilaf.  
  
King Leo objected. "But you misunderstand! The strawberries will save my kingdom!"  
  
The Colonel gave an amiable smile. "Of course they will. Here you go. Run along now." He deposited a basket of strawberries into the arms of the naïve monarch. Expressing his most profound thanks, King Leo was on his way.  
  
The kingdom of Verivel was in a sorry state when the King returned a month later. The fairy had run out of unique calamities in the course of two weeks, and would not debase herself to perform the traditional poison- in-apple trick, so the slew of natural disasters had petered out. The aftermath, she decided, was punishment enough for the devious Rosebelle. Indeed, the political uproar, and physical destruction called for a sovereign that knew the subtle maneuverings that is a princess's regime of protocol training. At the risk of being redundant, we state again that Rosebelle was not a true princess, and her crude method of operation paved the way for a civil war in the realm. The wise men had fled the country, and so the strawberries were ineffectual. In the end, King Leo, who, though lacking in street smarts, was a true monarch, smoothed the whole situation over. Rosebelle's deception went unpunished, as no one discerned that she was not a real princess, and that she was the cause of the entire upheaval. Even if someone had, her loveliness gave her an excuse, for everyone knows, you can't have beauty *and* brains. And they all lived happily ever after. 


End file.
